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‘Atiqot 70 (2012)
ISBN 2948-040X
Three Military Bread Stamps from the Western Wall Plaza Excavations, Jerusalem
(pp. 21*–31*)
Leah Di Segni and Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah
Keywords: Aelia Capitolina, epigraphy, inscriptions, Roman period
The three bread stamps, two complete and one broken, were discovered within a deep deposit (the ‘Roman dump’), which was sealed under a mosaic pavement of the Eastern Cardo’s eastern portico, and under the flagstones of the northern of the two streets that extend eastward from the Cardo. A centuria symbol, engraved at the beginning of the inscription on the two complete items, identifies these stamps as military bread stamps. The names of the soldiers on the bread stamps lack a
cognomen
, thus dating the stamps to before the end of the first century CE, during the first period that the Tenth Legion Fretensis was deployed in Jerusalem.